He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

UNAM, SANCTAM

Ecumenism seems to be Benedict XVI’s main concern. Before the Angelus on Sunday, 20 January, he referred to the apparition of the Virgin Mary in Rome on 20 January 1842. He said:

« May the Mother of God, whose apparition to Alphonse Ratisbonne in the church Sant’Andrea delle Fratte we recall today, obtain from the Lord for all His disciples the abundance of the Holy Spirit, in such a way that together we may attain perfect unity, and thus offer the witness of faith and life of which the world has such urgent need. »

On 25 January, during Vespers for the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, which marks the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Pope declared in the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls:

« This evening, the words of the Apostle on the relationship between human effort and divine grace resound and are filled with very particular meaning. At the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we are even more aware that the work of rebuilding unity, which requires all our energy and our efforts, is really infinitely beyond our possibilities. Unity with God and with our brothers and sisters is a gift that comes from Above, that issues from the communion of love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that grows and comes to perfection in it. It is not within our power to decide when and how this unity can be fully realised. God alone can bring it about! Like St. Paul, we also place our hope and our confidence “in God’s grace within us”.

« Dear brothers and sisters, this is what we wish to beseech through the prayer that we raise up together towards the Lord in order that it may be He who enlightens us and supports us in our constant search for unity. »

It is to this end that St. Paul’s exhortation to the Christians of Thessalonica: « Pray constantly » (1 Th 5.17) was chosen from among all the Apostle’s recommendations as the theme for this year’s Week of Prayer: « The invitation that St. Paul addresses to the Thessalonians is still topical, the Pope says. In the face of the weaknesses and sins that still prevent full communion of Christians, each of these exhortations maintains its relevance, but this is particularly true for the imperative, “Pray constantly”. »

As for us, its « relevance » is intensified by the call of the Angel of Fatima to « pray constantly »… But it is… « for the conversion of sinners ».

TRADITIONAL, “UNIONIST” ECUMENISM

The word “ecumenical”, which is derived from the Greek oikouménè, designates « the whole inhabited [civilised, Christianised] world », in other words: Christendom. Through the centuries, divisions were created within this Christendom; entire sections were torn from the Roman Catholic Church, without, however, altering her unity and her holiness, which are intimately bound, as our Father wrote in an admirable formula:

« The Church is one where she is holy in the virginity of her faith. But she is holy only where she is one, in the communion of her charity, whose heart is in Rome, with the Vicar of Christ. »

“Catholic ecumenism” is the reconquest of lost lands in order to reintegrate them into this unity. It is the « return » home, that is to say, to the Roman Church of those separated from her, heretics or schismatics, through a real « conversion » on their part to her faith and discipline. It is a simple, well-tried, laborious method, at least for one of the two parties, but a method that responds to the desire of the Heart of Jesus Himself:

« May all be one, as You Father, are in Me and I am in You; may they be one in Us so that the world may believe that it was You who sent Me. »

It is a method that was used fruitfully by countless saints of the Counter-Reformation: St. Peter Canisius, St. Thomas More, St. Francis de Sales, Bossuet, and so many others. It does not exclude engaging in public controversies with charity and truth, to be employed for the good of the heresiarchs and their successors. These controversies are to be conducted with great compassion and generous openness to the ordinary people who are deceived, lost, and suffer from being separated from Rome.

These were the principles of the conception of Catholic ecumenism that still prevailed in 1960. It is found in the schema « De Ecclesia » that Cardinal Ottaviani’s Theological Commission prepared. Its eleventh and final chapter dealt precisely with ecumenism, without any ambiguity on the definition of unity: « Because the Church, which is the only organisation of salvation that Christ instituted, was built as the one, unique Sign raised over the nations, nothing from inside can violate her unity. »

Nevertheless, there existed two other schemata at the beginning of the Council. One was entitled “Ut Omnes Unum Sint” and had been prepared by the Commission of the Eastern-Rite Churches, also called “Uniates”, because they were “reunited” to Rome. The reporter of this schema was a remarkable Ukrainian religious, Fr. Welykyj, a partisan of the traditional so-called “unionist” conception. According to this conception unity is sought by a “return” to the Roman Catholic Church; the “uniate” Churches will serve as a “bridge” between the schismatic East and the Latin West for this return. On the other hand, the third schema, “De Œcumenisco”, was of a totally different spirit: it had been drawn up by the Secretariat for Christian Unity, which Pope John XXIII founded in March 1960 and which was directed by the enterprising Cardinal Béa, assisted by the Dutchman, Willebrands, and by several French, Belgian and German religious, who were very well-versed in Protestant inspired liberal ecumenism.

The contemporary ecumenical movement, in fact, appeared among the Protestants, who as everyone is aware are divided into an infinite number of sects, which are all more or less nostalgic for unity. To this end, they organised Congresses in Stockholm in 1925, at Lausanne in 1927, but the Catholic Church refused to participate in them, since Pope Pius XI had condemned this ecumenism in his encyclical Mortalium Animos in 1928. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the Protestants from creating a World Council of Churches (wcc) in 1948, after the war. At the time, it was composed of 147 members, especially of reformed Protestants; today they are more than 350! – the whole forming a sort of parliament in which each Church has a vote. It goes without saying that the one, holy, Catholic Church could not enter it on pain of denying herself.

THE BREAK

But within the Catholic Church, disgruntled people like Fr. Willebrands, a great friend of Pastor Visser Hooft, President of the wcc, Fr. Congar, Fr. Dumont, and Dom Baudouin from the Abbey of Chèvetogne, wished to draw closer to the Protestant ecumenical movement in order to make common cause with it. Thus was born liberal or pluralist ecumenism, according to which the unity that Christ wanted will only be realised when all the separated Christian Churches and communions are all brought together to recompose the broken Mystical Body by means of an effort of conversion and reconciliation of all with all, equally.

Fr. Congar had published along this line a book entitled “Disunited Christians” in 1937, which Rome condemned. In 1952, Willebrands founded the Catholic Conference on Ecumenical Questions, which was composed of theologians and liturgists who demanded that the Church send observers to the wcc, but Rome was opposed to it. John XXIII was scarcely elected when he announced the convocation of a Council for which one of the priorities would be rapprochement with other Christians. This made it understood that he was in complete support of Congarian ecumenism. He sent off a « cordial and renewed invitation to the faithful of the separated Churches to participate with us in this banquet of grace and fraternity » (speech of 25 January 1959). The official version corrected the word « Churches » with « communities », and the verb « participate » with « follow us ». Despite the retreat in terminology, what a godsend for our ecumenists!

Thus, the Secretariat for Christian Unity swung into action under the whip hand of Béa, with John XXIII’s encouragements, and under the satisfied gaze and complicity of the non-Catholic observers who had been invited to participate in the work of the Council.

Vatican II’s brand of ecumenism is the story of a successful plot, the intention of which was to make the Catholic Church accept the new conception of Christian unity. This marks a complete break with the traditional conception.

The tone was set in the opening speech of the Council on 11 October 1962: « The family of Christians has unfortunately not yet attained visible unity fully and completely. » Unity is no longer a fact, a “mark” of the Roman Catholic Church, but a goal to be reached. Through what means is this to be done?

« The Catholic Church considers it her duty to make every effort to accomplish the great mystery of this unity, the unity that Jesus Christ, at the approach of His sacrifice, had asked from His Father in an ardent prayer… »

By taking His faithful flock out of the Jewish sheepfold to take them to pasture in green meadows, Jesus announced that His Church would be one from the beginning and that she would always remain so, under His leadership; He is the unique, Good Shepherd. To pray that she remain in this Unity so that men of good may incorporate themselves into it (in the literal sense of the word agréger: to enter into the flock), or to come back into it if they have left it, is a good prayer that touches Jesus’ Heart. But to pray that unity be brought about with those who have left the sheepfold and who claim that they are still « Christ’s », when they are betraying His faith or are rebellious to the authority of him who represents the Good Shepherd, is a detestable prayer that reeks of heresy.

In his book, The union of Churches, which was published in 1927, Fr. Journet wrote: « There is a unity that disgusts God; there is a unity for which He gave His Blood. It is only a question of defining them well. » John XXIII carefully avoided doing so when he opened the Council… On 19 October 1962, the Secretariat for Unity was given the rank of a conciliar Commission, which allowed it to write texts and be freed from the control of Cardinal Ottaviani’s Doctrinal Commission. There followed a “Decree” that passed on 21 November 1964 with 2148 votes against 11. Our Father read this Decree, pen in hand, in 1996 during his exile in Switzerland. We publish in the following pages, his hitherto unpublished commentary.